quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut That being said, if you do plan to get an SSD, make backups. I thought SSDs were supposed to be more reliable than mechanical drives - due to having no mechanical wear and tear, obviously - but less than a month ago, my drive (Vertex 2) suddenly died without any warning. I mean completely shitcanned, just blue-screened one day and the computer refused to recognize it after the reboot. Could not resurrect, the usual Linux Live CD standby and even the manufacturer's firmware tools wouldn't help. I subsequently found out that the older OCZ drives (prior to series 4) have a reputation for this, as do all SandForce-based drives (which is... almost all of them on the market), and therefore chose to replace mine with a slightly older model that has a proven track record (Plextor M3). Still, I feel a little like I'm walking on eggshells. Even Intel, whose original X25 drives were rock solid, has recently switched to SandForce technology, and (surprise surprise) users are reporting a lot of problems with their newer drives (330, 520, etc.), specifically that "8 MB bug" which they've supposedly fixed, but reports are still coming in that the fix isn't 100% effective.

Sorry to hear about your troubles, Diginut, but that's exactly the kind of information I was looking for. I'm going to do some research over the next few days and order the SSD this weekend. If you, or anybody else, has any suggestions for an SSD (128GB is probably perfect, for PC/internal system drive only), I'd love to hear them.

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I am building a new machine atm, my plan is also to have the system drive on a ssd + second hdd which will store the rest.
Ordered the Samsung 830 ssd, will see how it goes.

Here are some nice tips for SSD optimization: http://thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/...zation-guide-2/

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1. Anthony Paul & Jacksin - Bleach (Shiloh Remix)
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quote:

Originally posted by cryophonik Yeah, that's exactly what I was planning - 1 SSD for the OS drive, and keep my 4 1TB HDs for my music projects, samples, media, and backup drives. I have a lot of sample libraries and they take up the better part of a 1TB HD, but I don't think I've ever needed more than 5GB at any given time, so conventional HD is fine, in terms of cost-effectiveness and performance, for my purposes.

Maybe the difference in negligible but wouldn't you want to at least copy your current project and samples over to the SSD? Unless youre interfacing with your external harddrives with like eSata or whatever it's probably worth doing

quote:

Originally posted by meriter Maybe the difference in negligible but wouldn't you want to at least copy your current project and samples over to the SSD? Unless youre interfacing with your external harddrives with like eSata or whatever it's probably worth doing

I don't have any external HDs. I have 4 internal SATA2 drives - one is allocated to my samples, another to all of my music projects. The other two are for media (mp3s, photos, videos), and backup. I like the idea of having my current projects and samples on the main SSD, but I haven't done that in the past because of the performance benefits of having them on separate drives. I assume that would still apply to SSDs???

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i would definitely put your audio on an ssd. Ever since doing that, my CPU meter is never past 10. Which is weird but i think it doesn't give a real value but rather an idea and having the SSD makes it possible to play circa 100 audio tracks with no spikes.

Just save a few times a day. WHen ever i eat or get a coffee. I press a button and shit saves automatically.

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quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney i would definitely put your audio on an ssd.

I'll probably do that when the price of large SSDs (e.g., 640GB or more) comes down to something more reasonable. In the meantime, if I understand it correctly, I should be keeping my applications on a separate drive than my audio (i.e., music projects) and samples, even if the system drive is an SSD, correct?

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cryophonik | myspace | facebook | soundcloud

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i meant like more as a project scratch drive. Not samples. Just the audio for your projects. Like bounced tracks.

___________________
"This is why Superman works alone." GC
old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest

quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney i meant like more as a project scratch drive. Not samples. Just the audio for your projects. Like bounced tracks.

OK, got it. Thanks!

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Yes, system drive = SSD, and you want to get at least 200gb which should serve you just fine.

Prices are gradually coming down on the larger size SSD's but its going to be a another year or so before they get competitive.

Intel is really eh only brand to go for right now. They still are the only ones with both great performance and reliability. Even with the new sadforce chips and some of the problems they had with the earlier ones (the 8mb issus) they still had lower failure rates than any of the other manufacturers, and frankly I think it was a case of a a few people having that issue and shouting very loudly. Apparently it doesn't affect many units at all, it's just the instances were well documented.

If it's your OS, it's not really that critical to do backups and anyway, what you should do is once you have done a fresh install and you have it in it's perfect fresh state, make a clone of that drive on a backup drive, so if ever it goes south, you can just use your clone to create a new OS drive in a matter of minutes.

Here is a C&P from the other thread:

The thing is, most i7 systems can handle the projects, it's mor a matter of data bottle necking - even though logic has the discrete CPU and HDD monitors, it doesn't properly account for slow data throughput from your drives. Sure the HDD meter will spike with slow drives but magically, when you put SSD's in there you CPU meter also consistently records lower overall readings.

Basically, go Intel 3 or 5 series, get 200gb+ and make sure trim is enabled. Never look back - any other HDD computer will suddenly seem sooooooo slow.

system drive has your presets and what not so i think it is pretty important to backup. I think you need 2. 1 for os, the other for your scratch audio. I mean for this one , you don't need anything big especially for edm. Even 62 is enough for 1 - 3 projects.

___________________
"This is why Superman works alone." GC
old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest

to answer one of your questions, SSD technology is more reliable than magnetic recording, however that does not mean that SSD Y is always better than magnetic drive X

use newegg.com and find something well reviewed with the capacity and price range you are looking for and you should be fine

they are in theory. Its just that when they fail, you can't get the data back. I had to retrieve data from a hardrive once, cost me 2000$. But i got most of it back. I think that is the caveat. I don't know for sure but i would think that the interface you are using to access the drive matters. I've never had anything fail that was in my mac pro. external drives have failed. Perhaps it is the power supply ? The mac one is a pretty good. And if you are using dirty power....

___________________
"This is why Superman works alone." GC
old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest